Internet is an information and communication system in which a lot of people participate and vast information is shared. The information in the internet may be useful or harmful, and unsound information actually exists and its effect to the world is becoming larger and larger. The unsound information includes defamation, invasion of privacy, the infringement of intellectual property right like copyright and trademark right, leakage of business secret as well as obscene and indecent materials. To cope with these side effects of internet, most of the countries, whether developed countries or not, have made or are making laws on information and communication with some limitations to develop and use internet correctly. There are two kinds of limitations; one is a self imposed control by educational institutions, companies related to internet and civil organizations, which has been accepted by developed countries like America and the other a control by government and public organization, which is used by developing countries like Singapore. In this study, judicial liabilities of on-line service providers, therefore, have been studied to solve the torts in the internet.
Three ways have been used to find out whether on-line service providers have the liability on the torts in the cyberspace. One way is to analyze laws, ordinances, precedents and literal materials of the countries like America, Germany and Japan in the view of compared law, for the torts in the cyberspace have a transnational quality and the analysis of one country, therefore, is not sufficient to cover all the torts in the internet. Another is to use materials in the internet, and it has had the time limitation of printed materials overcome and recent laws, ordinances, and precedents reflected in this study. The other is to deal with the torts in civil law, judicial liabilities of on-line service providers and intellectual property right according to an individual country when one country has different laws from others.
The contents of this study are that chapter 1 is the purpose of this study, chapter 2 has a title of Internet communication and On-line service provider, which explains the origin of Internet, the forms of service, and on-line service providers, chapter 3 shows the judicial liabilities of on-line service providers and its jurisdiction, chapter 4 deals with the structure of torts of each country and negligence liabilities in the cyberspace to solve the problems related to torts, chapter 5 has the contents of defamation and the invasion of privacy, chapter 6 shows the infringement of copyright and trademark right, chapter 7 expresses the contents of informationalized privacy and leakage of business secret, chapter 8 is the conclusion, in which the judicial liabilities of on-line service providers to torts in the cyberspace are discussed.
In conclusion, general law system on internet, like America and Germany, must be made immediately against the torts on the cyberspace related to on-line service providers. To activate information society, however, it must not discourage on-line service providers. On-line service providers should not be exonerated from the judicial liabilities if they obey the conditions required by laws.